Monday, August 13

Variations on St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University

A charming sketch, from the drafting-boards of Howells and Stokes, of an abandoned alternative for St. Paul's Chapel on Columbia Campus, c. 1904-5, depicted with an enlarged dome and a strongly Italian Romanesque facade. While quite a successful design, the scale of the dome appears to suggest a building considerably larger than the actual chapel, whose lower dome seems more appropriate to its size.

Another abandoned variant from Howells and Stokes, who were filling out the basic campus partee laid out some years earlier by McKim, Mead and White, showing a campanile behind the church's east end and engaged with a stepped side-entrance into the campus.

The chapel as built, in a strongly classicized Romanesque manner, but still distinct enough in its archaeologically-inspired ecclesiastical character to distinguish it from the more canonically Greco-Roman campus buildings.

The interior, view of the dome. Excepting architectural elements, the principal ornament of the interior is its extensive patterned vaults of Gustavino tile, then an innovative and unusual material.

The apse. A dignified, if somewhat liturgically timid, Protestant design, with the altar at the end of a very deep chancel lined with elaborate choirstalls that threaten to overwhealm the actual sanctuary. The freestanding altar (with eastward facing footpace!)seems somewhat unusual to me, unless it was modified recently. It reminds me of Bertram Goodhue's somewhat "progressive" chancel at St. Bartholomew's, though I do not know much about the liturgical politics of the chapel's construction. That being said, with a stone top, six candlesticks, a hanging tester and a cross, it might make for a very fine Catholic altar.

"Go to the encounter with him in the Blessed Eucharist, go to adore him in the churches, kneeling before the Tabernacle: Jesus will fill you with his love and will reveal to you the thoughts of his Heart. If you listen to him, you will feel ever more deeply the joy of belonging to his Mystical Body, the Church, which is the family of his disciples held close by the bond of unity and love."
- Pope Benedict, Message to Dutch Youth

Dan: A perpetual choirmember, seek him where good music or custard are to be found. Contact him at basilique(at)gmail(dot)com

Emily: A graduate of Notre Dame's Philosophy and Latin programs, religious ed expert and Alto at large, she can be reached at emilynd06(at)gmail(dot)com

Matt: A graduate of ND's Architecture School, illustrator, church furnishing designer, and founder of Matthew Alderman Studios, doing entirely too many things at the same time in jolly old New England. Reach him at malderman83(at)gmail(dot)com

Drew: A lover of Jackie Chan and Cuckoo Clocks, he be can contacted at andrew_na(at)hotmail(dot)com

Becket: This Whapster Emeritus and longtime admirer of the Holy Father is enjoying his retirement on the shores of the Missisippi.

Vanitas Vanitatum:

"Cardinal, we're students at the University of Notre Dame in the United States..."
"Ah! Notre Dame!"~Benedict XVI (really)

"The Shrine of the Holy Whapping should be a part of every Christian's daily reading and meditation. Every time you load the page, you find something very much worth thinking about."~Fr. Jim Tucker

Even Weirder

St. Dymphna, protectress of lunatics, pray for us!
"Christianity, and nothing
else is the ultimate foundation
of liberty, conscience,
human rights, and democracy...
We continue to nourish
ourselves from this source.
Everything else is
postmodern chatter."
- Jürgen Habermas

"We desire that this practice... of using distinctive names by which Catholics are marked off from other Catholics, should cease; such names must be avoided... [they] are neither true nor just... they lead to great disturbance and confuse the Catholic body."
- Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum